Ocean Watch

http://susanscott.net/

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Susan Scott wrote a weekly column called “Ocean Watch” for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for 33 years, has written nine books about Hawaii nature.The newspaper cancelled the column in March, 2020, but she continues it on her website, www.susancott.net.

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Feb 22, 2020	Ocean Watch: Bee mail offers some stinging comments	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY CRAIG THOMAS This man regretted using the machete he was holding in his left hand to swipe at a honeybee stinging his right arm. The move added stitches to the ...
Feb 8, 2020	Ocean Watch: Opae ula appear like magic from caverns	COURTESY MIKE YAMAMOTO A red opae ula, left, and a white opae ula from Oahu. These color variations are from the same species, Halocaridina rubra, but may one day be considered different species. If you dig it, they will come. Opae ula, tha...
Feb 1, 2020	Ocean Watch: Rare corallimorphs have yet to be named	USGS A cluster of corallimorph grows in abnormally high densities off Palmyra Atoll. Each disc can curl its edges into a fleshy sac to engulf its prey. Poisonous tentacles around the disc’s edges kill corals settling nearby. A dive knife si...
Jan 25, 2020	Ocean Watch: Squid’s teeth could offer a new type of plastic	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The mystery squid from Lanikai Beach. Inset shows the squid’s teeth that line the rim of the tentacles’ suckers, which encircle its black beak. Just when I’m feeling discouraged about plastic pollution (Midway can do th...
Jan 11, 2020	Ocean Watch: Snorkeling at Midway produces a surprise	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Kolea lined up on the reef wall at Midway Atoll. MIDWAY ATOLL >> Midway is a typical atoll, consisting of three sand islands inside a turquoise lagoon encircled by coral reef. During the 1940s the Navy built a rec...
Dec 14, 2019	Ocean Watch: Sorting out ducks, geese and moons	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Two Muscovy ducks rest near Kalakaua Avenue and Phillips Street. Last week’s column about my family’s wildlife sightings at Kaena Point, including the white buttocks of an immature Homo sapiens male, garnered some email...
Nov 30, 2019	Ocean Watch: Flounder and box crab sometimes ride-share	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A peacock flounder with its box crab buddy, lower left, was found on Oahu’s North Shore. I may have once seen a peacock flounder with its box crab p...
Nov 23, 2019	Ocean Watch: Giving thanks for shearwaters and their caregivers	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Researcher David Hyrenbach holds a newly banded (right leg) wedge-tailed shearwater chick at Freeman Preserve in Black Point. Of the nearly endless things I’m thankful for this year, Hawaii’s shearwaters are high on my ...
Nov 16, 2019	Ocean Watch: Sea krait is snake that lives on land and in the sea	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT New Caledonia residents succeed in educating people to respect their sea kraits. Here a visitor drops to the ground to admire a “tricot raye” crawli...
Nov 9, 2019	Ocean Watch: Going batty for fruit bats and batfish in Australia	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT My baby batfish, and Trevor, the baby fruit bat. Australia’s bats are welcome in my belfry anytime. A few weeks ago, while getting our sailboat, Honu, ready for sailing the Great Barrier Reef, one of the marina staff to...
Nov 2, 2019	Ocean Watch: Pole-vaulting snails move fast to elude a predator	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT An Australian stromb shows its brown blade poised on one end and eyes alert on the other. The new moon phase, in which moonlight is absent, not only...
Oct 26, 2019	Ocean Watch: ‘Pom-Pom Channel’ has dazzling coral views	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Bright red pom-pom corals, or Dendronephthya, inhabit Fantome Pass. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Juno Bay, Australia >> One of my favorite places in the world to anchor our 37-foot sailboat Honu is here in Juno...
Oct 19, 2019	Ocean Watch: Bird fallout occurs when shearwaters head to sea	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A biologist prepares to put an ID band on this wedge-tailed shearwater chick’s leg. Hawaii hosts three shearwater species: wedge-tailed (most numero...
Oct 12, 2019	Ocean Watch: Sea hares’ tentacles combine nose and tongue	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The two rows of frills on a white-speckled sea hare’s back line its hidden shell. During an exhausting week of work and errands, I needed a pick-me-up, my usual being to go snorkeling. Conditions were not ideal. The sur...
Oct 5, 2019	Ocean Watch: Portuguese men-of-war are experts at sailing	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The Portuguese man-of-war’s eating parts, reproductive organs and stinging tentacles hang below its float. As it sails along the water’s surface (the sail isn’t visible in the picture), the creature trolls for fish, som...
Sep 14, 2019	Ocean Watch: Finding joy with a turtle and her entourage	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A turtle is surrounded with a bloom of red Spanish dancer eggs and reef fish. Some days, it’s hard to keep working to save the animals I love when it seems as if the entire world is mired in disaster. After feeling part...
Aug 31, 2019	Ocean Watch: Scorpionfish move slowly but possess poison spines	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The devil scorpionfish, called nohu omakaha in Hawaiian, is also known as Scorpaenopsis diabolus. While snorkeling with visiting relatives last week, our nephew motioned for us to come see what he found. I swam over and...
Aug 24, 2019	Ocean Watch: A dragon named Glaucus washes up on shores	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT One of the four blue dragons, also called Glaucus atlanticus, captured by Susan Scott. Last week thousands of baby Portuguese men-of-war blew ashore on Oahu’s windward beaches, shipwrecked by the tradewinds. The men-of ...
Aug 17, 2019	Ocean Watch: Boxfish is colorful and has bony armor	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A male spotted boxfish in Oahu waters. Oahu artist Susie Anderson said in an email, “I was snorkeling the other day at Anini Beach on Kauai and spied the most unusual fish I’ve ever seen and wonder if you can identify i...
Aug 3, 2019	Ocean Watch: Fans of kolea report its early return islandwide	COURTESY LUKE HALPIN This kolea shows the species’ typical fall and winter colors of both males and females. Come spring, the birds lose these feathers and grow new ones that show the two sexes’ distinctive breeding colors. My kolea is back...
Jul 27, 2019	Ocean Watch: Flooded camera offers chance to focus more on marine life	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY DAVID SCHRICHTE Hawaii has two species of endemic lionfish, one called green and one called red, pictured above. I never thought I would consider a flooded Cool...
Jun 15, 2019	Ocean Watch: Eels are just long, skinny fish wanting solitude	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Three young eels — a magnificent snake eel, left, Steindachner’s moray and snowflake moray — are seen on the ocean floor. On Sunday I went snorkeling at 6:30 a.m., and three Hawaii eel species treated me to a show by, w...
Apr 20, 2019	Ocean Watch: Toppled coral head lives on in modified oceanscape	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Porites lobata, or lobe coral — called pohaku puna in Hawaiian — is Hawaii’s most common kind of massive coral. The North Shore surf was so high the past two months that I couldn’t snorkel safely in my favorite spot. Bu...
Apr 6, 2019	Ocean Watch: Worm snail shells resemble whimsical doodles	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Shells of worm snails, also known as vermetids, from a Waialua beach. While walking along a North Shore beach last weekend, I picked up several broken worm snail shells that had washed ashore during the high surf. These...
Mar 16, 2019	Ocean Watch: Finding Dory … or her similarly blue-colored cousin	COURTESY CRAIG THOMAS A powder blue tang off the southwest coat of Zanzibar. While sorting through photos from our recent snorkeling trip in Zanzibar, I came across a dozen terrible pictures of blue tangs. The shots were either blurry or of...
Mar 9, 2019	Ocean Watch: Rocked by sea anemones while snorkeling in Zanzibar	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT When a sea anemone is threatened, it contracts its pedestal over most of its tentacles. Never have I seen so many sea anemones, most 1 to 3 feet acr...
Jan 26, 2019	Ocean Watch: Cold swim in the ocean awards with beauty find	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The foot of the author’s episcopal miter, is slightly visible inside the shell. I recently went snorkeling when the surf was unusually small on the North Shore. The water was so cold I later looked up January’s water te...
Jan 19, 2019	Ocean Watch: Upset about pollution? Stop buying bottled water	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Oahu’s tap water is some of the purest water in the country, according to the Board of Water Supply. Like most people, I’m frustrated over the plastic pollution problem and wonder if anything I do will make a difference...
Jan 5, 2019	Ocean Watch: Population of nene growing in Hawaii	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A pair of nene graze near Craig’s duct-taped boots at Haleakala National Park’s Holua cabin. Today over 2,800 nene live in Hawaii, enough that the U...
Dec 22, 2018	Susan Scott: It’s time to support causes that help seabirds	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Oikonos biologists David Hyrenbach, left, and Michelle Hester admire two red-footed booby decoys. Craig Thomas, center, helped with their placement....
Dec 8, 2018	Ocean Watch: Spiny lobsters cry out when in distress	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT This baby banded lobster is missing most of its two long antennae. The branched pair visible at the front are the lobster’s second pair. All crustaceans have two pairs of antennae, all the better to forage for food. I f...
Dec 1, 2018	Ocean Watch: New book celebrates Hawaii’s white terns	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! UH PRESS Susan Scott’s new book notes that the white tern population in Honolulu has gradually increased. The University of Hawaii Press released “Hawaii’s White Terns, ...
Oct 20, 2018	Ocean Watch: Indifference of unexpected visitor sparks delight	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Through the coming and going of swimmers and paddlers, this monk seal sleeps peacefully on Moku Nui’s beach. QUEENSLAND, Australia >> Craig and I are back aboard our 37-foot ketch, Honu, in Townsville’s charming B...
Oct 13, 2018	Ocean Watch: 2 fish species are proven mood lifters	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A bluespotted cornetfish gets worked over by a Hawaiian cleaner wrasse. Like everyone, I occasionally get overwhelmed with too much to do, and I just want to lie on the couch, eat chocolate and watch “MAS*H” reruns. T...
Sep 22, 2018	Ocean Watch: Acorn worm deposits not typical excrement	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Most acorn worms live in u-shaped burrows under sand or mud, sucking the surrounding substance into their mouths. A few weeks ago, I wrote that while snorkeling I found the red gonads of a sea cucumber, cast out when so...
Sep 1, 2018	Ocean Watch: Red squiggly mass offers insight into sea cucumbers	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The red tubules are likely the gonads of the black sea cucumber curled up below and coated with sand. This is Hawaii’s most common large sea cucumber, Holothuria atra. During a swim I took before the recent rain runoff ...
Aug 18, 2018	Waimea Bay is billboard for marine conservation	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Three greater amberjacks circle Waimea Bay’s schooling opelu. I’ve visited Waimea Bay countless times over the years, but it’s always been in winter when the surf, and surfers, are breathtaking to watch. Last week, thou...
Aug 11, 2018	‘Blue Planet II’ producers to film new series in isles	SUSAN SCOTT / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER My kolea is back, too. This is Jude, photographed in April, who winters in front of our house, on the Mid-Pacific golf course, and occasionally steps onto our lanai. We spotted him Wednesday rest...
Jul 28, 2018	With rats eradicated on Palmyra Atoll, birds, trees and reefs thrive	COURTESY ISLAND CONSERVATION Atoll biologists Coral Wolf and Alex Wegmann in emerging Pisonia trees at Palmyra Atoll. When in 2004 I worked at Palmyra Atoll, about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, rats were crawling out of the woodwork. Really....
Jun 30, 2018	Shorebirds a reminder of Hawaii’s Alaska link	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT One Arctic tern offers a fish gift to another. In some ways Alaska and Hawaii are worlds apart. But after my weeklong work with Pacific golden plove...
Jun 23, 2018	Plover study and tracking in Alaska a pure delight	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT This flapping male plover was trying to divert our attention from his nest. NOME, ALASKA >> When I told kolea researcher Wally Johnson that I wished I could spend my summer solstice birthday in Alaska, he invited ...
Jun 16, 2018	Flatworms and sea sapphires add sparkle to coral reefs	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A flouncing flatworm, scientific name Thysanozoon nigropapillosum. Flatworms are common in the Indian and Pacific oceans. As much as I loved swimming with millions of lovely, pulsing salps last week, their gelatinous bo...
Jun 2, 2018	Hands-on exploration is best way to learn	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT This creature may be called a starfish, a sea star or a Protoreaster. Take your pick. I’ve just flown to Townsville, Australia, where we now keep our sailboat, Honu. We plan on sailing to nearby islands and, weather per...
May 19, 2018	April storm washes up dead fish in Kailua	COURTESY KIRSTEN MOY An April rainstorm washed up what looks to be a chevron snakehead on Kailua Beach. If you have more information on this fish, please contact Susan Scott. On April 18, the day after a rainstorm flooded parts of Oahu, sev...
May 12, 2018	Volunteers bring aloha to students in Bangladesh	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT In addition to teaching kids in English and Bengali, ASSB provides them with uniforms, shoes and food. Bangladesh is one of the last places you would expect to hear hundreds of schoolchildren shouting, “Aloha!” but it’s...
Apr 21, 2018	Kolea ready for spring migration to Alaska	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Blanche, the leucistic kolea, at Heeia Small Boat Harbor. Plover admirers, this is the week to wish your neighborhood kolea safe travels. Soon most of Hawaii’s birds will be heading to Alaska, flying nonstop over the Pa...
Apr 7, 2018	Samoan crab resembling sea monster is protected	COURTESY READERS GARY AND HEIDI A large male Samoan crab caught at West Loch. ‘We were on a bike ride around West Loch (Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge) to the Bird Sanctuary,” Gary and Heide (no last name) emailed last week. But alth...
Mar 24, 2018	Urchins can use seaweed hat to feed themselves	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Susan Scott’s collector urchin in its opal sunbonnet. Because Hawaii is so far from the tropical Pacific, fish and coral larvae had to survive long periods adrift to get established here. As a result, the Hawaiian Islan...
Mar 10, 2018	Stone money and gobies in Palau and Yap	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A Palau mudskipper. Regarding Yap’s stone money, I wrote last week that the larger the piece, the more value it had. That’s wrong, according to two readers who informed me, kindly, that according to their Yapese friends...
Feb 10, 2018	Breathing gets bubbly while crabs are on land	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A reader spotted this rock crab, or aama, blowing bubbles at Maunalua Bay. A lot of us beach walkers are crabby, and I mean that as a compliment. Last week a reader spotted two rock crabs, or aama, at Maunalua Bay that ...
Jan 27, 2018	Midway beach becomes wall-to-wall sea turtles	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A lost honu hatchling flaps its flippers in an effort to run or swim. It was released at the shoreline and swam away within seconds. Three weeks ago I wrote that an increasing number of green sea turtles, called honu in...
Jan 20, 2018	Good deed brings rare glimpse of sea horse	COURTESY JEANINE PALMIERI As slow swimmers, sea horses hide and remain motionless as a defense from predators. I could practically hear the yippees in Jeanine Palmieri’s email when I read her account of what she and her husband found at Bel...
Jan 13, 2018	Green turtles’ numbers are growing at Midway	COURTESY HOPE RONCO Green turtles have become abundant on Midway Atoll, choosing to bask in particular on Midway’s Sand Island. An immature green turtle on Midway prepares to eat a Portuguese man-of-war. I missed going to Midway this year, ...
Jan 6, 2018	Distinct isle anemones stow their okole at aquarium	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT On exhibit at the Waikiki Aquarium is a Mann’s anemone, a variety found only in Hawaii. In light of all the time I spend snorkeling and reading abou...
Dec 23, 2017	Isolated Midway still has creature comforts	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A pair of Laysan albatrosses sing and dance. The birds bond for a lifetime. When I mentioned that Craig and I were going to work at Midway counting albatrosses over the holidays, the questions people asked made me reali...
Dec 16, 2017	Laysan albatross joins birds visiting isles for the holidays	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT This time of year is perfect for reading about a fictional Laysan albatross’s tale in “A Perfect Day for an Albatross” or watching the documentary “Midway: The Edge of Tomorrow,” which covers the significance of the ato...
Dec 9, 2017	White terns enjoy growth with the help of humans	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT White terns have taken to urban life, gracing trees between Hickam Air Force Base and Niu Valley. If visions of fairy terns dance in your head this month, they’re not holiday hallucinations. For the second year in a row...
Dec 2, 2017	It’s the time for ‘wedgies’ to be leaving their burrows	COURTESY CRAIG THOMAS Grounds workers found a wedgie fledgling stuck in bushes last week, and they delivered it to columnist Susan Scott, who helped the bird launch to sea from Kailua Beach Park. Years ago, when I fell in love with marine b...
Nov 18, 2017	Minuscule ‘water bears’ are uncanny survivors	COURTESY ACTA ZOOLOGICA A drawing of a water bear, or tardigrade appeared in the scientific journal Acta Zoologica in 1981. I’ve been a “Star Trek” fan from the first show in 1966 to this week when I shouted at the TV, “Hey, that’s a tardig...
Nov 11, 2017	Bleaching isn’t always death knell for corals	COURTESY CRAIG THOMAS Many scientists believe that the Earth is headed for a sixth wave of mass extinctions, with humans rushing the rate. Corals will be among those affected, but one small sign of encouragement is that some corals are adap...
Nov 4, 2017	Spiral float is unique to 1 species of cuttlefish	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Each cuttlefish species has a distinct shape, size and ridge pattern in their buoyancy bone. Cuttlefish bones from Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia, are displayed. I’m home from Australia after seve...
Oct 28, 2017	Sea snakes seen sunning amid Great Barrier Reef	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Sea snakes, which carry venom used to paralyze prey, can make for good swimming and snorkeling companions, if one doesn’t fear them. KELSO REEF, AUSTRALIA >> After sitting out a week of rain in Magnetic Island Mar...
Oct 21, 2017	Underwater ‘banquets’ are a feast for the eyes	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A giant clam sits on a bed of coral in Britomart Reef in Queensland, Australia. ORPHEUS ISLAND, AUSTRALIA >> After nearly a week of snorkeling on the outer reefs of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, stormy weath...
Oct 7, 2017	Colorful ocean plant also reeks of dead fish	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Sea sawdust blooms in the Coral Sea, forming strips of growth so large that they’re visible in satellite photos. TOWNSVILLE, AUSTRALIA >> Last week a Tahitian snapper made itself known to me by opening its own pag...
Sep 23, 2017	Puffy toylike fishes aren’t to be played with	COURTESY RUSSELL GILBERT Boxfish are named for their rectangular shape, formed by a rigid shell around the body. Only the fishes’ eyes, fins, mouths and tail are movable. Boxfish ooze a poison to ward off predators. My 10-year-old snorkelin...
Sep 16, 2017	Scorpionfish well hidden with leafy camouflage	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Leaf scorpionfish belong to the scorpionfish family but lack the anglers and venom that others commonly have. Hawaii is home to many leaf scorpionfish, which resemble decomposing leaves drifting in the water. I have a f...
Sep 9, 2017	Disturbing truth makes seafood unappealing	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT An Australian slipper lobster known as a Balmain bug. Last week when our Sydney taxi driver asked the carload of us where we were from, we shouted in unison, “Bangladesh! France! Guatemala! Hawaii!” We were in Australia...
Aug 26, 2017	Eagle ray finds a way to soar on minus snout	COURTESY PAT GODING A reader named Pat Goding and her West Oahu snorkeling group have become acquainted with a spotted eagle ray that has adjusted to life without its food-finding snout, which has been replaced by a hook. Dubbed Puggy, the ...
Aug 19, 2017	Grotesque acorn worm helps clean sand in sea	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT An acorn worm leaves behind a mound of expelled sand that it has ingested while looking for organic matter. My nephew, Joe, pointed out an area of exposed sand during a low-tide walk in Australia. “There sure is a lot o...
Aug 12, 2017	Asia market far extends American eel’s journey	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT It’s easy to see why harmless snake eels, such as this one, are mistaken for sea snakes. All eels are fish. I thought I knew my eels, but a recent news item in this newspaper, about a species called the American eel, le...
Jun 24, 2017	30 years bring many adventures for Ocean Watch columnist	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Columnist Susan Scott is photographed in front of her natural habitat: the water. Some of Scott’s adventures over the years that have made their way into Ocean Watch. Thirty years ago this week, I wrote my first Ocean W...
Feb 25, 2017	Yap’s gentle giants of the reef prove a bit timid, too	COURTESY MANTA RAY BAY RESORT Manta rays are gentle giants that are plankton feeders, swimming forward with mouths open to sift the water for food. Paddlelike flaps on each side of the mouth direct plankton down the hatch. YAP >> Beca...
Feb 18, 2017	Colorful reef habitats offer shelter from a storm	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Feather stars are related to starfish. Standing a foot tall, they resemble a bouquet of flexible twigs. KOROR, PALAU >> My week in Palau was not what my eight snorkeling companions and I had pictured. Winter is th...
Jan 28, 2017	Moon snails use stealth in the sand to stalk prey	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Moon snails lurk beneath the surface of shallow to deep water, burrowing down as much as 7 inches in the sand. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MARTHA HERNANDEZ / [email protected] Moon snails live in climates ranging ...
Jan 21, 2017	Ugly bottom dweller has its charms, slime and all	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Columnist Susan Scott’s Christmas tree was made of painted hagfish traps, which frequently wash ashore in Hawaii. Hagfish get no respect. And they should. The eel-shaped, bottom-dwelling creatures, averaging 20 inches l...
Dec 31, 2016	Peace, hope graced city on wings of white, gold	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT White terns have a ring of black feathers around their eyes, giving them a wide-eyed appearance. About 2,000 of them live in the Honolulu area. Most of my email this year was for the birds, specifically Pacific golden p...
Dec 24, 2016	Sea turtles are wonders to witness everywhere	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Turtle biologists measure a known loggerhead female as she lays her eggs in Mon Repos park in Queensland, Australia. This year I’ve already had the best Christmas present ever: a boost in appreciation of living on Oahu....
Dec 17, 2016	New book chronicles decades of kolea studies	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! In the mid-1990s I wrote a column about the Pacific golden plover, Oahu’s favorite shorebird, known here as kolea. Read more Mahalo for reading the Honolulu Star-Adverti...
Nov 26, 2016	Some reef encounters captured in blink of eye	Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story! One of the pleasures of being home after an adventure is sorting photos of the trip. But as I go through pictures of my recent sailing trip in Australia’s Great Barrier ...
Nov 12, 2016	Expedition to spot shark encounters spotty shark	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Epaulette sharks, named because of the large black patches near their “shoulders,” are found in waters off Australia and New Guinea. Ravens Cove, Hook Island, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park >> To mark exceptional ...
Nov 5, 2016	Help wedgies by turning lights off near shorelines	COURTESY ALEX WEGMANN Wedgies, or wedge-tailed shearwaters, have haunting nighttime mating calls that can sound like groans or screeches. Honu is still inside the Great Barrier Reef, but because we’re on the move and near neither reef, isla...
Oct 29, 2016	Corals’ outer beauty belies fierce battles over territory	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A coral micro atoll is formed due to encroachment by several species of clams. Whitsunday Islands, Australia >> Among these famous islands, fish of every color, shape and size swim among corals of every color, sha...
Sep 17, 2016	Man-of-wars are 1 animal, not a mishmash of critters	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A marooned Australian Portuguese man-of-war, also known as a blue bottle. At the beach, I recently ran into my neighbor, Marya, who, as usual, had a thoughtful marine animal question. She wondered how it is that a Portu...
Sep 10, 2016	White birds ‘having a blast’ likely honeymooning terns	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT The white tern, or manu-o-Ku, is abundant in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands, but in the main Hawaiian Islands they breed only on Oahu. Nuuanu resident Robert emailed, “For the last few years we have been blessed by b...
Sep 3, 2016	Reproduction is laborious for certain marine worms	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT These palolo worm relatives are called green paddle worms, common in eastern and northern Australia. Green paddle worms keep their sex cells to themselves, each segment making and shedding its own gametes. Labor Day mar...
Aug 20, 2016	Little cleaner wrasses offer spa experience to other fish	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A cleaner wrass with an island jack customer. Last week, in about 7 feet of water, I swam over a reef wall and found myself in the middle of a dozen jacks, a new species to me, each bearing yellow, dashlike marks on the...
Aug 13, 2016	Lone sea pen makes mark during shallow-water swim	SUSAN SCOTT A sea pen is found in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Craig and I don’t often snorkel side by side. He thinks that swimming fast in deep water is best, because that’s where the big jacks, sharks and manta rays hang o...
Jul 2, 2016	When it comes to coral, the story is complicated	News reports about the demise of the Great Barrier Reef are so pervasive that before I left Hawaii to sail there, several people asked me why I wanted to go. Then I arrived and for six weeks enjoyed the most glorious corals I’ve ever seen. ...
Jun 18, 2016	Huge sea life of great reef is too incredible to see solo	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A giant clam about 4 feet long was just one of the oversize specimens spotted in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. BOWEN, Queensland, Australia >> Where fishing is prohibited here in the Great Barrier Re...
May 28, 2016	Diverse array of ‘pennies’ comes from marine critters	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Australians call these foram shells mermaid’s pennies; they’re common on the Great Barrier Reef. GOLDSMITH ISLAND, Queensland, Australia >> While sailing north through the reefs and islands of Great Barrier Reef N...
May 21, 2016	Clever honeyeaters boast bold hues, big sweet tooth	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A blue-faced honeyeater is a tropical bird about the size of our mynahs but with the striking colors typical of many Australian birds. This honeyeater finished the latte behind it and then stole a packet of sugar. KEPPE...
May 16, 2016	Hungry trumpetfish sticks close to turtle at dinnertime	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A huge trumpetfish rests near the ocean floor, under a turtle that it uses in a kind of symbiosis called commensalism. Editor’s note: Susan Scott’s weekly Ocean Watch column will be moving to Page B2. It will appear on ...
May 9, 2016	Extracted teeth tell the tale of a truly extraordinary fish	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Parrotfish have protruding beaklike teeth, used to bite off pieces of coral rock to get to the algae growing on the surface, or to scrape live coral heads to get to the corals’ soft bodies. While snorkeling I found a bi...
May 2, 2016	Creatures show that gender is neither rigid nor constant	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT Most anemonefish are born male and change to female as the need arises. This is a Clark’s anemonefish swimming off Palau. North Carolina politicians recently passed a law that requires people in public buildings and sch...
Apr 25, 2016	The kolea are set to depart on their 3,000-mile journey	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT This bird’s black face, ringed with white, marks it as a male. He is due to take off any day now for Alaska, where he’ll try to woo a mate. The past few weeks our Pacific golden plovers, or kolea as we call them here in...
Apr 11, 2016	Red fish that hides in a cave can be ID’d as 1 of 3 species	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT A blue, pink and yellow Hawaiian cleaner wrasse cleans a soldierfish as two others wait their turn just outside their cave. Whenever I peek in a cave I pass during one of my favorite snorkeling routes, the Dr. Seuss boo...
Apr 4, 2016	1867 sailors showed heart, unlike Kaena Point vandals	After reading about my experiences at Midway, home of the largest albatross colony in the world, Mililani resident Jim May emailed me excerpts of letters his great-grandfather Edward May wrote. Edward was the paymaster aboard the USS Lackaw...
Mar 28, 2016	New Oahu albatross colony required a huge team effort	COURTESY SUSAN SCOTT These albatross chicks, with an adult decoy, were raised at James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge in Kahuku. Last week I visited the cutest albatross chicks in the world, balls of down so bottom-heavy they look like b...
Mar 21, 2016	A humpback can be home to a half-ton of barnacles	COURTESY ROBERT MAUGHAN The Coronula diadema, or whale barnacle, is known to live only on the skin of humpback whales. On a beach last week, Molokai reader Robert Maughan found a shell he describes as a 2-1/2-by-2-1/2-inch coral-urchin-barn...

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FAQ about Ocean Watch

What has the press written about Ocean Watch?

Parsers VC has collected 288 articles mentioning Ocean Watch, among them “Ocean Watch: Bee mail offers some stinging comments” (Feb 22, 2020) and “Ocean Watch: Opae ula appear like magic from caverns” (Feb 8, 2020).

Is Ocean Watch still active?

Yes, Ocean Watch is active; its latest activity on Parsers VC dates from Feb 29, 2020.